Finding The Space To Fill ... Day #31

Thursday...Feels Like Friday

 This is all about filling space. 

Would I like to work here?

Would I like to make things happen here?

This has been a challenging week.

The edits from the LHH guy are in.  They are not bad.

Logistically it was a 'car issue' week.

You need to spend money to make money.

You need to spend money to get from place to place.

I've been thinking a lot about my post from yesterday.  The best part was the link or the text I embedded that said you can make money doing things you love.  That's the theme for the next twelve hours.

If you don't want to work for dumb people, work for yourself.  You are a quick learner.

Do Creative People Have Jobs? ... Day #30

Google that!
I hear 'Google that' often and want to punch the speaker.  Do some real work.  Hit the card catalog or "The Reader's Guide to Periodicals."

I 'Google' a zillion times a day and just Googled "do creative people have jobs."  It's not clear if that quote requires a question mark.  That punctuation might not be required given that everything typed (or spoken, if hip) is a question.

The first result was interesting:

Whether you studied visual arts, music, filmmaking or writing, there are definitely jobs for creative people out there and you CAN make a living doing something you love. For example, art majors can find freelance arts jobs or look for art teacher jobs, art therapy jobs or art education jobs.



The image of a left-handed (as am I) artist was encouraging.  The important phrase in the quote was "...you CAN make a living doing something you love."

I love Google (even though I use Yahoo more often).

The second result had a few suggestions:

1. Teacher
2. Fashion Designer
3. Chefs/Cooks
4. Software Engineer
5. Management Consultant
6. Landscape Architect
7. Public Relations Specialist
8. Human Resource Specialist
9. Game Designer

Unfortunately my first response to all all of them is that they pay about 25% of what I earned as a C-Level executive.  Of course I had no life.  My world has touched on most of these with a couple of exceptions. While I have an appreciation for good design in many forms I don't think I'll be a fashion designer.  

Google Knows What I Should Ask
A few years ago (2?) Google inquiries started to prompt you with the results of millions/billion/trillions of inquiries entered by people smarter, or more likely dumber that you.  I typed "do creative people" and Google completed that with "think differently."


"The Daily Galaxy" provided the following insight:  "The study published in the journal Neuropsychologia, reveals a distinct pattern of brain activity, even at rest, in people who tend to solve problems with sudden creative insights, which are commonly referred to as “Aha! Moments”, that differed distinctly from people who tend to solve problems, and think in a methodical fashion."

"Aha" moments pretty much describe my approach to things.  It was always interesting in the 27-year gig.  People did not appear particularly creative and most said they were not creative.  The architects sort of breathed creativity but it really appeared that they were more of the cut and past creative mode.

"Thank You Google" for this one...

This is the one that I want to re-visit.  LHH has this precursor to a resume called a 'marketing statement' or 'position statement.'  What I like about this Google result is that it defines some structure and principles to a more creative (and hopefully satisfying) life.  That's not to say that it's not achievable in the C-Level suite.  It is a confirmation, however, that I spent a long time trying to sell ideas and solutions to people who did not want that and never would or will.  Thanks, Google.  I'll see if Eric Schmidt and his Google team can solve some of my personal problems. 

Utility Day ... Day #30

Knowledge Acquisition
My style as a manager is to encourage employees to continually improve their skill sets, to ensure that they are always employable elsewhere and when it's about the time to leave for the day, do one more self-improvement or organizational-improvement task.

Managing takes a considerable amount of time.  Generally you should spend at least one-half your day interacting and teaming with your staff, face-to-face or in live collaboration.  The administrative and company partnering time should consume the rest of the day.  Your personal challenge is to improve your own skills, not just management skills but also your technical skills.  That probably ends up being an off-hour challenge.

About ten days ago I realized that having things plugged in my ears or on my ears was OK but that streaming audio going from my PC or iPhone to a portable speaker would be good.  "Bluetooth" popped into my head.  While heading to Best Buy or Target could have worked I trolled through the Amazon options and ended up with the Sharkk bluetooth speaker.  For thirty-one bucks it has awesome sound and now is part of my personal and business go-bag to enhance conference calls over the phone, sharing audio, etc.  There is also an SD option to use it as a stand-alone device.

A few years ago I was an early adopter of bluetooth headsets but found the whole discovery and connection process tedious.  This experience was very positive.

Personal Logisitics

• senior care financial management
• daughter's car in for maintenance
• truck in for oil & brakes
• wife's car for tires and oil tomorrow
• online bill payment
• small business support (accounting, A/P, inventory, marketing)
• space renovation issues

Professional Logistics

• call to Bush guy at top of list
• meeting with LHH contact THU PM
• schedule lunch with TR for next week
• messaged various contacts via LinkedIn 

Day Twenty-Nine ... It's About the Queue, You Know.

Getting in the Right Queue

Finding the right queue should really be easy.  Some places have 32 queues.  Of course only a few queues are open to anyone, and some queues are open just to people with fewer items.  

Finding, or picking, the right queue is a lot like looking for a job.  You look at the person controlling the queue.  They appear competent, perhaps pleasant, but things just don't move along as they should.  It should go smoothly.  Everyone knows the process.  The facts are clear.  The transactions simple.

HR people are the check-out and check-in people of the employment world.  It's a potential bottleneck that needs to be leveraged or avoided.
 
It's interesting that some companies have streamlined their employment queues, automating the process to look for key words, expressions, dates and probably errors of omission. 

In this particular store/queue scenario the business has, for whatever reason, not implemented the really slick self-checkout lines which usually eliminate the queue.  Home Depot's self-checkout is problematic.  Cub's is pretty good.  WalMart, the easy-to-hate company has done a great job.  Their manual check-out process was tedious and a bit unpleasant.  Eliminating the check-out person and replacing that with really good equipment and software has made the process much better.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that traditional jobs/queues are losing their appeal and reward to the self-checkout and self-defined job options.

My Son Was Right...I Missed A Day #28

Failure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go To Your Room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Said "Write A Blog Post Every Day!"!!!

"Don't Argue With Me.  I Am You."

Sunday (Day #27) was not a good day, for personal reasons.  Isn't everything in one way or another personal?  That's not an adequate excuse.

My son was right.  This is a difficult personal challenge.

Day #27 Is Water Over The Dam, Yesterday's Breeze, An Opportunity To Smile Missed.  Worst Of All It's Something That Should Have Been Said, Just Like Not Telling Your Best Friend How You Feel Until They Are Gone.

Day #28

The good part of Day #27 and Day #28 were spent 'up north.'  Winter and deer season are just around the corner.  My expanse of irrigation hoses have been buried under snow once already.  Everything has been fenced, including all last springs new trees and bushes and this summer's grape planting.

The major failure this year and last were my fruit tree grafts.  The root stock survived so it looks like 2014 everything will work.

Tomorrow I'm going to get on my LHH guy to see if he made any resume edits.  I'm also going to call the Bush Foundation Grant guy TUE PM.  Over the weekend I also found that the State does major art grants every other year.  I've missed it for 2013 & 2014 but will work on an application for 2014 for the 2015 year.

There has been previous comments about distractions.  During my 'up north' computer time the stinky little bugs that look like pleasant lady bugs kept landing on me.  Here I have spiders descending periodically in front of the screen.  My standard background/headphone approach is either "The Best Radio You Have Never Heard" or KZSC.  Unfortunately KZSC just started playing some Led Zeppelin which has distracted me and the stimulation for this paragraph.  I'm sure Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are not trying to write a blog post every day, but of course they are employed, sort of.

The photo is of some simple boxes I make for a local boutique.  The designs are typically free-form pyrography, stenciled images, air brushing, etc.  This time I did some relief carving.  The next round will include relief carving of the image objects.

Where Oh Where to Work....Day #26

A Place To Work
Early in this trip, about twenty days ago, I visited the Minneapolis and St. Paul CoCo locations. The networking, social events, technical events and ambiance were inviting.  The St. Paul location felt less so, a bit like bad college apartment living.  Minneapolis offers cheap parking but that still remains a commute and I don't want to spend money on downtown lunches and eating out of Tupperwear long ago lost it's appeal.  While I may stay on top of their events I believe there are other locations that I can write, design and code.  Home works OK at times, especially when you don't want to shower but there is always the frig calling or the need to quickly do something.  Working where I am today feels good.  Clean bathrooms, coffee, space, nice lighting and a chair that communicates 'get to work' and not comfort is feeling pretty good.

The Resume
There are a few refinements in-process.  For years I've used my middle initial, 'F', for Fredrick, my maternal grandfather's name.  He was a hard-working, long-living Norwegian.  In hindsight he rarely spoke, was a good provider but was not really a contributor to his daughter's happiness or success.  There is always a tendency for us to respect parents, grandparents and others, but as I've grown I don't believe he contributed much to my life or success.  When I think of influences I immediately think of my paternal grandfather, his dry sense of humor and his chuckle and his many acquaintances.  He, too, was a hard worker but in a more technical area and primarily self-taught.  I'm going to consider changing the resume and perhaps my name.  I'm going toe drop the middle initial from my resume name.

Back in the day, I was deep into industrial psychology, organizational development and management.  This is an area that I need to stress, too.  My expertise goes beyond IT, touching also into human resources, executive leadership, strategic planning and believe it or not, marketing.  Good design, both in space and objects, but also in teams and organizations is a comfortable place.

Boutique Consulting
Yesterday at the MK gig a chat with a customer included the obligatory 'what do you do?'  Not many people ask me what I do.  Perhaps the geezer appearance is an issue.  The target of my question responded that he had a 'boutique' consulting business.  It's still not clear if that meant it was small, nichey or smelled like potpourri.  Regardless, I like the idea of niche expertise; I always have.  I think I have a lot of niche expertise in a lot of areas.  I'm going back to the LHH Marketing Statement and elaborate on my niche areas of interest and expertise.

Last Night's Party
I was the oldest person at the party.  There were two people, including the guest of honor, who were 50 and thought that was quite special.  Ha.

The guest of honor was the tallest person at the party.

The dog of the house, a golden retriever, was eight and a half.  Even considering 'dog years' I was the oldest.

Just Under The Wire ... 16 minutes left of Day #25

Just Under the Wire

This evening included a trip to Plymouth for a birthday party for a salesman who was turning fifty.  The invitation was appreciated, especially because now that I'm unemployed sales people have no reason to call.  It's a bit of a letdown to go from a $4.5 million budget one day to, well, nothing the next.  It's a quick shirt from prudent, thoughtful corporate spending to prudent, thoughtful personal spending.

The Clock Is Ticking
We've moved far away from people having clocks that they need to wind or that they hear ticking and I guess wristwatches, which eliminated pocket watches are disappearing because Verizon and the other cells carries have better time.

Ten Minutes to Say Something Good...Preferable About This Photo And the Job Consideration
There was not a response from the RHH assignee so I'll make another revision SAT AM.

At the party numerous people asked if I was retired.  I was probably the oldest person there by a decade.  That was really weird.  Everyone was enthusiastic and most seemed employee in good consulting or tech jobs.  I was probably the only executive (unemployed) there.

Moving forward as every post has alluded to involves looking at the options and throwing my hat in the right (correct) ring or spending my quarter in the right....OK, I give up.  There are six minutes left in this day and this post is going nowhere.  Like I always say, you need to be comfortable with what you are not good at and I'm comfortable ending with this.